Sighing, Torin shelved one volume and withdrew another. These were recent recordings, all made in Sidra’s tidy handwriting, and his eyes were blurry by the time one account snagged his attention.
Torin’s treatment for an enchanted silencing wound, Sidra had written. What followed was recipe after recipe that had failed to heal him—until Sidra tried fire spurge.
His breath caught. He shut the book, his fingers absently tracing the scar on his forearm. He remembered now. The enchanted wound that stole his voice had been so cold. He remembered how the fire spurge burned through the discharge, bringing him back together slowly but steadily.
He ran through the castle, through the crowded streets. He reached the hills again and cried, “Hap? Hap!”
The spirit didn’t answer. Torin sagged, his loneliness keen. But his blood was humming, and he began to comb the fells for fire spurge. Sidra had described it in her ledger—she had found it in a shifting glen, and it grew in the cleft of the rocks.
Torin searched fruitlessly. Eventually, Whin appeared, watching him crawl on his hands and knees.
“What do you seek, mortal laird?” she asked, but her voice had turned cold, like frost on the grass.
Torin sat on his heels, gazing up at her. “I apologize for my careless words. I don’t hold the earth at fault for what’s happened, for Sidra’s illness. I spoke to Hap in anger.”
Whin sighed and repeated, “What do you seek?”
“Fire spurge,” Torin said. “It grows in one of the glens that shift. Can you guide me to it?”
Whin stared at him for a long, piercing moment. He thought she wouldn’t reply, but then she turned and began to walk toward a southern hill, wildflowers blooming in her footsteps. Torin followed. Down they went into a mist-laden valley. Whin came to a slow halt at the mouth of the glen, furrowed in the valley like a wound.
Torin would have never found it on his own.
He thanked Whin, but she remained quiet as she watched him step into the glen. The stone walls, beaded from the mist, rose high on either side of him. His breath echoed in this place, and he shivered, staring up at the rocks that embraced him. The fire spurge’s red blooms burned through the fog, drawing his eyes to a cleft.
Torin instantly began to climb. He was lost in thoughts of home when his fingers touched the plant. Pain flared, bright and sudden, shooting down his arm to his shoulder. He snatched his hand away, gazing at the angry flush on his palm, the blisters beginning to welt.
This was what Sidra had felt for him. This was the pain she had carried to heal him, and Torin’s hands shook as he tried again, gritting his teeth against the rays of agony. He tugged the spurge free, feeling as though his hand was being consumed by flames. He swiftly uprooted a second spurge with his other hand. The pain was so overwhelming that he struggled to find his way back down to the ground.
Somehow he did, managing to land on his feet.
At last, he had the riddle’s fire.
He returned to his workstation, where the old, scorched rock waited with the fresh batch of crushed flowers. Torin knelt, spilling the fire spurge into the grass. He decided he would add only one to the medley and save the second to use in case he had another mishap.
Whin stood nearby, the only witness. Torin wondered where Hap was—maybe the hill spirit was watching from beneath?—but he couldn’t worry about his absence. Torin had to wholly focus on what he was doing. He needed to churn up the spurge with blistered hands and he hesitated a moment, anticipating the pain.
Torin winced as he took hold of his makeshift pestle and crushed the spurge as best as he could. The blisters on the heel of his palm threatened to burst. It was complete and utter agony, and he shouted his pain into the mist.
Blood and salt, blood and salt, he repeated to himself, giving his hands a moment to recover before he dipped them into the bucket of seawater. His blisters burned even worse, and he rushed to spill the ocean onto his medley of flowers.
There was a rumble beneath him. The scorched stone seemed to groan before it cracked in two, and Torin was once again hurled backwards. He lay in a patch of bracken, blinking the dust from his eyes and staring up at the stars and the sun and the moon.
Hands on fire, he laughed, incredulous. He didn’t have to look at the stone to know that all his labor had vanished.
He had failed again.
Chapter 32
Adaira followed a guard through the castle corridors. Mud had dried on her boots, and thistledown clung to her dress. Her plaid was wrinkled from being pinned at her shoulder all day, and her breaths were shallow. She was late for her dinner with Moray, and there was no one to blame but herself.
She had gotten lost in the wilds on the ride home from visiting Kae at Loch Ivorra. The hills and valleys had changed on her, and Adaira had ridden, hour after hour, watching the light wane as her eyes desperately searched for a familiar sign. But without the sun to give her direction, she had been hopelessly lost.
It was the first time she had tasted fear in a long while. Bile had crept up her throat, and she had swallowed it down until her stomach churned. An icy bolt had pierced her chest as she struggled to remain calm, continuing to ride over the next hill, then the next, hoping the spirits would release her from their game. Then a mist had rolled in, and Adaira had no choice but to dismount from her horse.
She tried to think of what would happen if she never found her way home. If the hills eventually took her as their own, with grass weaving into her hair and wildflowers blooming between her ribs. She envisioned Jack, waiting day after day for her return. Innes riding through the wilds in a fruitless search.
Adaira walked the land on foot, her horse trailing behind. She walked until it was almost dark, and only then did the mist melt away, allowing her to behold the glimmering city in the distance.
The memory coaxed a shiver from her now as she continued to wend through the castle passageways.
You’re home. You’re safe, she told herself, but she couldn’t ignore the weight of her dread.
“Your sword,” the guard said to her when they reached a door Adaira had never seen before.
“Of course.” She had forgotten it was there, belted at her side. She handed it over and tried to brush the thistledown from her clothes. In the end, it didn’t really matter, she supposed. This was likely to be the last time she ever spoke with Moray.
The guard unlocked the door.
Adaira took a final second to compose herself. Then she stepped into a small, firelit room. There was a table set with two plates, filled with food that had gone cold. Moray was chained to a chair at one end of the table, waiting for her with an impatient gleam in his eyes.
He held his tongue until the guard had shut the door and they were alone.
“Lost in the wilds, sister?” he asked.
Adaira resisted the temptation to touch her braid, which was snarled from the wind. “I’m still learning my way around. You shouldn’t have waited on me.”